SUMAN K SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, Nov. 9: The Jharkhand government is of the view that the report submitted by Justice Vikramaditya Prasad Commission doesn’t officially exist in the eyes of the government.
“We officially don’t know that such a report ever existed for the government,” said a highly placed source.
The grounds for its view are said to be technical. Under the Commission of Enquiry Act, the late Justice Vikramaditya Prasad should have submitted his report to the cabinet coordination department of the Jharkhand government. Thereafter, the government would have either accepted or rejected it and then placed in the Assembly for taking any action,” pointed out an official.
Instead, late Justice Vikramaditya Prasad submitted the report to the then Governor Droupadi Murmu, who forwarded it to the Jharkhand Assembly speaker with a recommendation to take action given the report submitted by the Commission.
“So, the government is not officially in possession of such a report,” the official added.’
“That was the reason the Jharkhand government constituted a fresh commission headed by Justice S J Mukhopadhyay, a retired Supreme Court judge. “Among other issues, the new commission was also tasked with looking into the issues touched by Justice Vikramaditya Prasad,” he added.
However, the Jharkhand government did not rake up this legal and technical lacuna involved with Justice Vikramaditya Prasad’s report in the Jharkhand High Court today.
Instead, Advocate General Rajiv Ranjan told a division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjaya Kumar Mishra and Justice Ananda Sen that the Mukhopadhyay Commission had submitted its report to the Jharkhand government. “We will examine and place it before the Assembly and then inform the court accordingly,” he added.
Thereafter, the court set the date of December 7 for the next hearing of this case.
Notably, the Jharkhand High Court, hearing a PIL filed by Shiv Shankar Sharma, had been continuously directing the Assembly secretary to produce the report, submitted by late Justice Vikramaditya Prasad in 2018 after probing over 500 illegal appointments made between 2005 and 2007. Irked with the non-compliance of its order, the court had even warned the Assembly secretary to face criminal contempt proceedings if he did not submit it.
On the other hand, the Assembly always told the court that the report of Justice Vikramaditya Prasad Commission is currently with the Commission headed by Justice SJ Mukhopadhyay. Therefore, it could not be submitted.
Every time, the high court demanded the report, the Assembly secretary wrote it to the cabinet coordination department, requesting it to make the report available after obtaining it from the commission.
The cabinet coordination department, in turn, replied that the issue involved the Assembly secretariat. Moreover, the Commission’s office is in the Assembly premises, so he should directly obtain it from the Commission.
Notably, the State government had constituted Justice Mukhopadhyay commission in the light of the Advocate General’s opinion, sought by the Assembly speaker. Its mandate was to examine the legal issues that may crop up if the Assembly acts on the report of the late Vikramaditya Prasad commission, which is said to have made adverse comments on the role of three successive speakers and several assembly officers.
The case
Shiv Shankar Sharma has filed a public interest litigation in this matter. It has been said in the petition that there were irregularities in the appointments made in the Assembly between 2005 and 2007.
During the tenure of Alamgir Alam, a CD involving the issue of money transactions had come to the fore. The then Governor Syed Sibte Razi had ordered an inquiry. Retired Justice Loknath Prasad first conducted the investigation, and then Retired Justice Vikramaditya Prasad got the responsibility for the investigation. In the year 2018, Justice Vikramaditya submitted the investigation report to the then Governor Droupadi Murmu (currently the President).
The report accuses Namdhari, Alam, and several officials of irregularities, nepotism, and favouritism in appointments in the assembly during their tenures. It also says that the appointments were more than the number required.
Murmu sent the inquiry report to the Legislative Assembly for action. She had also recommended a CBI probe into the CD episode.
Sharma’s lawyer Rajiv Kumar contended that the Assembly was sitting over the Commission’s report as well as the governor’s recommendation.
